Say Something
by KayanixAyaxFujimiya
Summary: WORK IN PROGRESS: A series of one-shots, written from Saitou's POV. SSL AU. Saitou is a young woman, whose husband (Souji) was drafted into the Japanese Army. Saitou gave birth to their only daughter, Kitsuki, born with CP, just days before receiving the news her husband had died in the war. This is her story in the years following the news of her husband's death.
1. One Tone

**Author Notes:** This is a series of one-shots written from Saitou's POV in the time that his husband is gone. Please note, in this story, Saitou is **_female_** but I have written his pronouns as male pronouns. This is simply because I'm used to writing Saitou as a male and have been far too lazy to actually go through and change all the pronouns from he to she. Some of these pieces will be short, and some will be long. Some will be emotional, others will not. I chose to write these because of the roleplay I have going on involving this storyline. I wanted to investigate Saitou's time without his husband without having to go through it in the roleplay too deeply. Parts of this will act as a diary for Saitou, others will be written from Hijikata or Sano's POV. But to keep things clear, I'll make sure to list who's POV is going on when I do change to view Saitou from a different place.

And, as always: This work is entirely fictional. I do not own Hakuouki or any of the characters. I only own Kitsuki, who was created for this storyline.

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_Dark. Drab. Dreary._ White walls lined with more white and pale gray. The sound of heart monitors and the occasional beep from a machine giving a patient more morphine. Tired feet carried him forward through the hall that seemed to stretch endlessly on. A nurse giggled from somewhere down the hall, flirting with one of the younger doctors. The same in and out of life in a mental ward.

Saitou hated it all. He hated the color, the smell, the sounds, the bland taste of the food, everything. He hated how hard the beds were, how the nurse laughed at the doctor's ridiculous joke. He hated everything about this place.

Yet he couldn't leave. He couldn't flee from the place that held him down. He couldn't break free of the restraints that held him down, that tortured his wrists whenever he tried to claw at his own face or pull his hair out. He couldn't fight the darkness that surrounded him and suffocated him when he screamed loud enough they decided to end his day and send him into night time early with a needle and a nice dose of sedatives.

He hated it all. It was one tone.


	2. Color Burst

**Author's Notes: ** I still don't own Hakuouki, though if I did, man, the things I would do. The only character I own is Kitsuki. And I make no profit from these writings, unfortunately.

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Occasionally, however... There was a burst of vibrancy.

She came to see him. His world morphed from colorless to vibrant, startling shades of red and green, purples and yellows. Her eyes were blue. Her hair was the same startling shade as her father's. And that crooked smile she smiled looked like it'd been cut from Souji's and placed over her own mouth. The days didn't seem so long when he had her in his arms. He began to live through each week until the day he could see her again.

Her hands were tiny, his own engulfed them. Little fingers clung to his own long ones, his life-line clinging, breathing, gripping his very soul and chaining him to the world.

She couldn't walk. She couldn't feed herself. She wasn't capable of speech, or even inarticulate sounds usually barbled up by tiny lungs and vocal cords. But she smelled of home, of baby powder and mashed carrots that her caretakers fed her. She felt warm and bright in a life of dank colors and routine dampened figures.

She was a vibrant color burst in his life of one-tone thoughtlessness.


	3. Breathe

**Author's Notes:** Trigger warning: suicidal thoughts, self blaming, self harm, harm to others. I do not own the characters except for Kitsuki. Not intended to make any profits from this story.

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There were days when he was forced to relive what brought him to the point of being locked in a mental ward.

Those times were the times when he couldn't breathe. He stopped functioning. He wanted to die. He had tried numerous times to die. He'd tried in vain, only to rethink his priorities in the last moment, when a soft gurgle from the crib alongside his bed caught his attention.

He couldn't go back, but was too afraid to step forward into the future. He was a priceless painting frozen in the midst of a never-ending world. Each day he took a step forward, only to take three more steps back. He fought constantly to stay above the rain threatening to drown him in misery and hopelessness.

Fear tore him apart, more fear put him back together. He couldn't breathe, but he continued to inhale. All for the sake of those big blue eyes blinking at him from the crib by his bed.

After his third attempt at killing himself, and ultimately, to kill his only daughter, he found himself locked away in the bland, greyscale world of a mental hospital. He shuffled about each day, between the horrors of the ward he was in and the mental images of his husband leaving and never returning. He relived the pain of hearing his husband's final words every moment he was breathing...

_"They're letting me off to come see our baby's birth, Hajime~! Tell her to save some of the kicking for me. I love you both! I can't wait to see you. I'll be home soon!"_

Why wouldn't they let him die? Why wouldn't they let him end the torment and pain in his head? They called him irrational, they told him it was silly to want to die for such a reason. But they didn't know what it was like to live in his head, to wake up each day and roll over, knowing he wasn't there. They didn't understand the pain and horrors of raising a mentally handicapped child alone.

They didn't know what it was like to blame themselves for everything bad that happened to their only daughter. To hate themselves from the core for being the problem and causing something to be wrong with an otherwise perfectly healthy baby.

They didn't blame themselves for thinking that's why the Gods took away their husband, because they were the reason their daughter was messed up.

They didn't know how hard it was to feel that way and continue breathing...


	4. Blue

**Author's Notes**: I don't own the characters except for Kitsuki, and this work is not meant to bring in any profit.

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Sometimes, he lay awake, staring out the barred window to his room at the sky beyond. There were always little stars glimmering and shining, sparkling with life.

He envied them sometimes. So free, so full of life. Infinite and never-ending smiles of the heavens above. He would move to his window at times like this and put his hand against the glass. His fingers would leave heat streaks against the glass, marking where he'd touched. He'd press his forehead against the glass and close his eyes. Only then did peace seem to come for a moment. He finally understood, at that point, that he had to continue on. That he had to breathe and take steps forward.

And he would. Time passed. Days turned to weeks, which turned to months. Slowly, little by little, he gained ground.

But there was always something holding him back. Some demon that raised it's head and tore at his heart and drug him backward. Some little phrase that would leave his mouth and that he'd regret instantly, but couldn't change.

He fought against himself, struggling to become the mother he was supposed to be.

For those blue eyes and that crooked grin, he had to.


End file.
